Sadly, the issue is bigger than Graham. The lack of women in startups is a symptom of a much larger problem involving tech investors and the retrograde culture they protect and promote. It’s not just women who are excluded –it’s pretty much anybody who isn’t white, male, young, and privileged.

In the future, all companies will be technology companies – or so said Silicon Valley startup investor Marc Andreesen at the recent Lean Startup Conference held in early December. His statement – repeated by many – is a variation on the notion that "the geeks shall inherit the earth". If that is, in fact, to be the case, then it’s time to question venture capitalists’ narrow-minded selection criteria that will result in the earth we will inherit looking a lot like the one we left behind. To venture capitalists, a future technology company founder looks the way he’s always looked: young, male and Ivy-League-educated. Zuckerberg, Mark II.

To change this, we could start with some of the industry's most important tenets, which should be challenged.

Belief one: you can only succeed if you have an all-consuming passion for what you're doing

Investor David Hornik puts it this way: “Entrepreneurship is about passion. Great entrepreneurs are not driven by a simple desire to make money. They are driven by a need to change the world. They may change the world by building a better operating system or a better search engine or a better social network. But whatever it is they are building, great entrepreneurs are driven by passion.” Hornik wants to feel so passionate about startups that he is “rolling around at night” thinking about them. He wants the founders he invests in to do the same. But passion, in a startup context, turns out to be something a little more sinister than simply doing what you love. It’s a belief that if your startup isn’t your life, you will fail. Your startup comes before all else, including your personal relationships. Those with families? Please exit through the back door.

Belief two: working long hours separates the real entrepreneurs from the hobbyists

The tech industry fetishises long hours. Coding for days at a time without even going outside is considered the norm, and anything but eating at your desk is a waste of precious time. As former TechCrunch editor and now investor Michael Arrington put it , “if you work at a startup and you think you’re working too hard and sacrificing too much, find a job somewhere else that will cater to your needs.” If you want to be part of history, Arrington adds, “then maybe after that good cry after a short sleep under your desk you’ll pull yourself together and remember. That you are a person in the Arena. A Pirate. That you are here to make a dent in the universe.” And Arrington warns, “there’s so much money in Silicon Valley now that a lot of non-like minded people have rolled in. Looking for easy stock options at a hot startup. They start whining when they realise that they have to give so much to make it all work.” So, robotic hive-minds need only apply. Arrrr.

Belief three: a modest salary proves you’re committed

The only thing a modest salary proves is that you don’t have financial responsibilities. That pretty much excludes anyone with a family or a mortgage, or without a well-off mum and dad to help pay the bills. Startup adviser Bob Dorf made the point quite clearly in a post titled “How much should a startup founder pay himself”, in which he claims “salaries are the nemesis of any committed entrepreneur.” A recent ad on Craigslist proved just how far (and low) this expectation had gone, advertising rent of $1k/month for dorm-style rooms with co-ed (as if!) bunk beds in SF as an opportunity for entrepreneurs. Anyone who can live as if they are still in a frat house and survive off beans and rice crackers is at an advantage. Investors like to say they invest in people not ideas, but this doesn’t mean giving people money, it means giving young men money to prove how much they are committed to their idea by not properly compensating themselves.

Belief four: startups aim to 'change the world'

This is the biggest fallacy underlying the beliefs of Silicon Valley’s homogenised religion: that it is “changing the world” . And if you wondered what “changing the world” means to investors, Hornik made it clear: “building a better operating system or a better search engine or a better social network.” It’s a good illustration of just how out of touch Silicon Valley investors are – what about the growing poverty gap, climate change, the single mother struggling to put food on her table, those being left behind by the digital divide?

Those who succeeded before are likely to succeed again in the areas that have proven successful. And so the crowd that seeks to replicate Zuckerberg with more young, white, privileged male founders continues unabated. For an industry that prides itself on innovation and “making a dent in the universe”, every time we let investors’ beliefs go unchallenged, we’re guaranteeing the future looks pretty much like the past. Except tomorrow’s winners are richer, younger and more privileged than the white men before them.